We had a friend and her two daughters over to play this afternoon so Little R and I got out the baking book and had a go at Date and Ginger Slice. It was really easy to make, was baked for the time stated in the recipe, unlike my last cake, and tasted delicious. If only it was healthy too. You need: 125g block margarine, 125g light soft brown sugar, 125g black treacle, 175g packet of dates finely chopped, 150ml water, 225g plain white flour sifted, 1tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1 medium egg beaten, 1 heaped tsp finely chopped preserved ginger and half a tsp ground ginger.
In traditional country mouse style, I made a mistake with the recipe. How I will ever return to the world of work I do not know, when I can't even follow a recipe for ginger cake. It was supposed to be one heaped tsp of finely chopped preserved ginger but I just took one piece of ginger from the jar, chopped it up and put it in. That was quite a lot of ginger. Luckily I noticed in time and didn't add the ground ginger. I'm planning to use the rest of the preserved ginger for a Fay Ripley sticky ginger chicken recipe and will blog that when I do it. Anyway, you gently melt the margarine, sugar, treacle, dates and water in a large pot. Stir in the sifted flour, bicarb of soda, egg, preserved ginger and ground ginger. Mix well and spoon into a 28x18cm greased and lined swiss roll tin and bake at 180deg fan for 30-35 mins. Let it cool in the tin for 15 mins then put on a wire rack and peel off the baking paper. Serve on pretty china plates while the rain lashes against the window.
Another good thing about cocooning is that with the housework done, a state of affairs which lasts an hour max, I can pick up a needle with a fairly clear conscience. The tapestry above has been gathering dust for a good while and it only took an hour to finish it off before the house began to resemble a war zone again, so that was fine. Having meticulously stitched the border, I took it to a craft night a few months ago to work on the leaves and really messed them up because I was too busy chatting. It's meant to be oak leaves and acorns, believe it or not. Never mind. I will frame it and hang it in a dark corner and just not look at it too closely.
And this is my latest project, a garland of gingerbread men, from the Tone Finnanger Christmas book (see Shelfari bookcase on right hand margin of blog, below blogroll). The half-stitched gingerbread man in the photo above looks a bit wonky but that's because the page it's on is curved. I felt like Noel Edmonds the other day with his "ask the universe and the universe will provide" patter. I was searching online for brown linen and cream linen, as per the illustration in the book, but was having no luck, so posted a message on Facebook to my craft group friends to ask if anyone knew somewhere to try. I then popped into the charity shop on my way to pick up Little R from nursery and what should I see but a big basket of fabric, including brown and cream linen. Thanks, universe. Let me leave you with this happy thought - Moet £14 at Morrisons: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-champagne-sparkling-wine.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
a country mouse cocoons
Monday, 16 November 2009
a country mouse burns a cake
You need 3 conference pears, 25g unsalted butter and 1tbsp granulated sugar to make the caramelised pears for the top of the cake. You melt the butter at a high heat then add the pears, peeled, cored and quartered, and cook gently until they begin to colour. Then add the tbsp of granulated sugar and shake the pan till the pears are coated. While Hugh did all of the above he was busy beating the butter and sugar for the next stage, but I know my limitations so did the pears first then tackled the beating bit. You use electric beaters, unless you are very strong, to beat 300g of softened unsalted butter until soft and pale. Add 250g caster sugar then beat in 4 medium eggs (above), one at a time, thoroughly combining each one before you add the next. Then fold in 150g wholemeal self raising flour, 150g ground almonds and a pinch of cinnamon and turn the mixture into a greased and lined 23cm springform cake tin. Arrange the pears on top and pour over the caramelised butter/pear juice from the pan.
Bake, says Hugh, for 35 mins at 170degC. Well, after 35 minutes my cake was wobbling in the tin when I pulled out the tray to check it. 10 minutes after that there was no perceptible change and a skewer came out slathered in cake mixture. I covered it with foil (top getting dangerously dark), turned it up to 180deg and gave it another 10. Then another 10. After baking the damn thing for more than an hour I lost patience and took it out. Here's the result: 
Thursday, 12 November 2009
a country mouse buys some books
On a very much less aggressive note, you might like to see my other purchase, this little Ladybird book, entitled "Learnabout...Cooking." Both of these books were charity shop buys, by the way, and were 20p each, so I'm not busting the budget. Recipes include Banana Snow, Scotch Eggs, a Cheese and Pineapple Hedgehog and, below, Vanilla Ice Cream, featuring Bird's Dream Topping as an ingredient.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
a country mouse finally blocks that blooming scarf
You plunge your precious handiwork into a basin of cool water with a little bit of very mild detergent, such as a baby soap powder, then squish and soak it until every fibre has been thoroughly wetted. Then remove, carefully wring out and rinse twice in clear cool water. Squeeze out the excess water then lay on a folded towel and push and pull it into the exact shape you want it to dry into. You can pin it if you want to be extra precise. Leave it for a day or two until it is completely dry, then, ta da. Despite having done this before and witnessed the miracle of blocking, I must admit I was quailing a bit as the flowers looked so very twisted and scrappy when they were wet, but look, it turned out fine after all:
Thursday, 5 November 2009
a country mouse and a christmas robin
Little R and I are back on our feet at last after a horrible week-long virus which kept us both in bed with our eyes shut tight. Now that it is over it is hard to remember just how bad it was but truly, it was bad. It is never easy to be ill when looking after a little one but when you are both ill at the same time it really is hard going. It has certainly been a reminder to look after our health and to appreciate it. We wrapped up warm and ventured out to the shops for supplies this morning and came back with this little chap, the first Christmas decoration of the season and it's not even fireworks night yet. I'd like to claim it is me being organised but of course it's just that I can never resist a robin.
The worst of being ill was that Little R and I missed her aunty's wedding. Little R was to have been a flower girl. We were so sad to miss it but unfortunately there was just no way either of us could have managed it as we were basically unconscious. Daddy Mouse walked his big sister down the aisle and by all accounts (well, his account!) gave a wonderful after-dinner speech, then brought us back some wedding cake the next day and this beautiful posy which Little R was to have carried on a ribbon. She would have looked so sweet and it is such a shame that she missed seeing all her relatives, and seeing her aunty as a beautiful bride.
Before I succumbed to the mystery illness I was working on some wrist warmers like, it would seem, everyone else in blogland. Unlike everyone else though, I messed up the pattern! You will no doubt recognise the wrist warmer notion from Lucy's Attic 24 blog. Lucy chained 35 on a 3.5mm hook. Well, I was too lazy to go and look for my 3.5mm hook so chained 35 on a 4mm hook and ended up with rather large wrist warmers. I decided to turn them on end as a way of narrowing them a bit so now have vertical instead of horizontal stripes. This affects the way they sit on my wrist so instead of wrinkling down nicely in concertina folds they are a bit like armoured gauntlets, but never mind, they will do the job on cold winter mornings and they used up all the odd bits of Debbie Bliss wool I had left over from my sister and sister in law's scarves. One of these days I will sew in all the ends of my sister's scarf that I photographed in a very early blog post and then block it and photograph the blocking process like I promised. I just absolutely HATE sewing in ends! As an experiment, I crocheted in the ends on the first gauntlet and left them loose on the second to see which was easier. Crocheting them in was easier, and now I have another load of ends to sew in. Grrr!
But I will smile and make the best of it because.....
...it seems I've been nominated for a Lemonade Award for "seeing blessings where they're not obvious and making lemonade instead of complaining about sour lemons." The award is being given by Beth at The Linen Cat Blog and I've been nominated by Anne at Andamento, my own absolute favourite blog, so it is a real thrill. Apparently I have to write down some things I am grateful for and then nominate some other lemonade-making bloggers. OK, here goes:
1. I am profoundly grateful for my amazing daughter and my happy-natured husband, and for my loving parents, wise brother and sparkling sister, and their families too.
2. I am lucky enough to have some really good friends - strong, unique women who enrich my life.
3. I am grateful for my good health and for that of my family and friends.
4. I am incredibly lucky to be what I want to be in life - a mum who is here at home with my little girl. It's not for everyone but for me it is the most precious dream of my heart and I treasure every moment of it.
I have some lovely blogs to nominate. Unfortunately I am so rubbish at computery stuff that I am not able to write them as links in the text and so have to put their full addresses:
http://theamplecook.blogspot.com/

1. I am profoundly grateful for my amazing daughter and my happy-natured husband, and for my loving parents, wise brother and sparkling sister, and their families too.
2. I am lucky enough to have some really good friends - strong, unique women who enrich my life.
3. I am grateful for my good health and for that of my family and friends.
4. I am incredibly lucky to be what I want to be in life - a mum who is here at home with my little girl. It's not for everyone but for me it is the most precious dream of my heart and I treasure every moment of it.
I have some lovely blogs to nominate. Unfortunately I am so rubbish at computery stuff that I am not able to write them as links in the text and so have to put their full addresses:
http://theamplecook.blogspot.com/
http://smallthingssmile.blogspot.com/
http://sewpatchwork.blogspot.com/
http://thecoffeelady.blogspot.com/
http://countryinthetown.blogspot.com/
And the link to the beautiful and inspiring blog which nominated me, Andamento, is http://andamentoblog.blogspot.com/
I dread the day I go back to work and have to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of computers. When I started work in the civil service, many moons ago, we used fountain pens and wrote on foolscap. Sounds like something out of Dickens now, but that's the way it was, and that's what I'm comfortable with, dammit! Oops, I may have just blown my chances of the lemonade award.
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